3.1.1 Non-proliferation of nuclear weapons

The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bombs marked the end of World War II. This act was accompanied by a hope that the proliferation of nuclear weapons could be stopped — or at least that their development be delayed by means of rigid controls over all nuclear activities (Baruch Plan, 1946). However, by 1952, in addition to the United States of America, two new nuclear weapons states (the Soviet Union in 1949 and the United Kingdom in 1952) had emerged. At the same time, many more nations were seeking to benefit from the peaceful use of nuclear technology, especially for the generation of energy. In 1953, U. S. President Eisenhower announced the ‘Atoms for Peace’ program to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy while demanding non-proliferation, i. e. preventing and discouraging any further military use. In the course of implementing this strategy, the IAEA was created in 1957 and entrusted with the international promotion and control of peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Its purpose was given in the Agency’s Statute (IAEA, 1956), approved in 1956; amendments followed, most recently in 2009.

At about the same time the European Community was founded and the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) was established with the signing of the EURATOM treaty in 1957 by the six founding member countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands). Chapter VII of the EURATOM treaty confers wide regulatory powers to the European Commission to ensure that civil nuclear materials are not diverted from their intended peaceful use (Euratom, 2010, in the Lisbon Treaty version).

During his election campaign in 1960 John F. Kennedy said that ‘. . . there are indications. . . , that 10, 15, or 20 nations will have a nuclear capacity, including Red China, by the end of. . . 1964. I think the fate. . . and the future of the human race is involved in preventing a nuclear war’ (Kennedy, 1960). Not long after, the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 showed, for the first time, that ‘mutual assured destruction’ was a real possibility and furthermore, by the end of 1964, two additional states had tested nuclear weapons, France in 1960 and China in 1964.

In 1968 the ‘Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons’ (NPT) opened for signature; it entered into force in March 1970 (UN, 1970), recognizing the then existing five nuclear weapon states, demanding that all other signatory states should forgo nuclear weapons and accept verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Since then, India (in 1974 and 1998), Pakistan (in 1998) and the People’s Republic of North Korea (DPRK, in 2006 and 2009) have tested nuclear explosives. Israel is believed to possess nuclear explosive devices but has never carried out a nuclear explosion. DPRK has been a party to the NPT but announced its withdrawal in 1993. The other three have never been parties to the Treaty.

South Africa had a nuclear weapons programme but dismantled all nuclear devices before joining the NPT in 1991 — as a non-nuclear weapon state. Upon the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991 there were nuclear weapons in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine; these, however, were all returned to the Russian Federation, the successor of the Soviet Union, by 1996.

Vertical proliferation (i. e. within the nuclear weapon states) raged during the Cold War: the number of US nuclear warheads reached a peak of over 32 000 in 1967, the Soviet Union reached its maximum in 1986 with 45 000. According to the Federation of American Scientists there are still over 22 000 nuclear warheads in the world, with an estimated 9600 in the US, 12 000 in Russia, 300 in France, 240 in China and 185 in the UK. Israel is believed to possess about 80, India 60-80, Pakistan 70-90 and the DPRK less than ten (FAS, 2011). The weapons amassed during the cold war were reduced in numbers following the ‘Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty’ of 1991 (START I) between the US and Russia. Since the termination of START I, a new treaty has been agreed and weapons reduction is ongoing again (USSD, 2011). Additional impetus for these developments came from the ‘2000 Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement’ between the US and Russia (USSD, 2010/7) that itself followed on from a number of bilateral measures and the ‘Trilateral Initiative’ (Russia, US, IAEA) started in November 1996 (USDOE, 1996; Bunn, 2003). Most recently, a letter from Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and US Secretary of State Clinton to IAEA Director General Amano indicated that both parties wished ‘to conclude. . . agreements with the IAEA. . . to implement verification measures with respect to each Party’s disposition program’ (IAEA, 2010/6). There will also be a follow-up by the five nuclear weapon states (P5), subsequent to a statement, at the 2010 NPT Review Conference (UKUN, 2010), of their determination ‘to continue to implement concrete actions aimed at ensuring full compliance with their obligation under the NPT’. This initiative is to be pursued at a meeting to be convened by France in early 2011 (France, 2010).